The Doctor worked straight through the night; sure he had it this time. It was at least his sixth attempt to break through the restraints placed on him by the Time Lords, and each of them had failed. Not this one, not if he had anything to say about it. Switching the time rotor to a negative frequency might just undo whatever they'd done to his TARDIS.
He poked his head out from under the console, not letting on how eager he was to see if it worked, but all too soon he heard an unfamiliar grinding noise. It was more violent than the friendlier version his TARDIS made while traveling, and he quickly ducked back under the console, intending to pull out the jury-rigged time rotor. Before he got there, the console exploded outward, and he had to duck to avoid being hit by gears and wires.
"Well, so much for that," the Doctor said, retrieving the time rotor, which had blown apart completely. It would have to be replaced now. He sighed, and stalked angrily out of the TARDIS, slamming the doors as he left. He leaned against the doors and sighed. It wasn't her fault they'd done this to her, but couldn't something work? Just once, couldn't he get a little closer to getting off this rock?
"Liz?" The Doctor called. "I need more of those heavy-duty wires you found for me, do you know where they are?" No answer. "Liz?"
He went out into the hallway, which was unusually deserted. The Doctor didn't usually pay much attention to what went on outside his lab, but he was sure there were UNIT officers around all the time. "Liz?" he called again. Still no answer. He started to make his way through the building, finding no one anywhere. "Sergeant Benton?" He started back to the lab, intending to call the guardhouse asking where everyone was. Maybe something had gone wrong? He was sure he would have noticed though.
"Tell the Minister to have a good holiday from me," the Doctor heard coming from an office he passed by. "Yes, thank you very much. Goodbye." The Brigadier appeared through the open door. "Oh, hello, Doctor."
"Ah, Lethbridge-Stewart. You're just the person I wanted to see, for once," the Doctor said.
"I'm glad to hear it," the Brigadier said sardonically. "What can I do for you?"
"Where is everyone? I've been looking for Liz for the past twenty minutes and she doesn't seem to be anywhere. And then I went looking for her, and no one seems to be here. None of your uniformed men, no Sergeant Benton. Did something happen while I was working? I would like to stay informed, you know, Brigadier."
"Doctor," the Brigadier said, holding up a hand to stop his ranting. "Nothing happened. It's Christmas! Most of the men are on leave. Liz told you last week she and her husband were going to spend Christmas in the French Riviera."
"Oh," the Doctor ran a hand across the back of his neck in embarrassment. "I must have forgotten, I was, er, trying to fix the TARDIS, you see. It's a dreadful mess and I needed some more wire. I suppose I must not have noticed everyone had left."
"You really must get out of that box of yours, Doctor," the Brigadier said. "I don't know what you expect it to do."
"Well, you're one to talk!" the Doctor said, sidestepping the Brigadier's rather obvious attempt to find out what he was doing with the TARDIS. "What are you doing here, if it's Christmas? Don't you want to spend the day with your family?"
"Someone had to stay on duty," the Brigadier said, looking the Doctor straight in the eye as if daring him to say anything about remaining on duty on a holiday.
"Yes, I suppose someone did," the Doctor said. He looked at the bundle of wires he was holding, then started to say that he should get back to his lab. With everyone gone, he'd probably have some uninterrupted work time, although he had to admit that going back to the lonely lab to face more failure at the helm of the TARDIS was the last thing he wanted to do.
Fortunately, the Brigadier cut him off before he finished his thought. "Doctor, as long as you're here, I have some brandy in the office. Strictly for off-duty, you understand. But it is Christmas, if you wanted to join me?"
The Doctor was about to refuse, but something about the two of them being the only two people in practically the whole of UNIT Headquarters made him rethink his decision. "Yes, that sounds very nice, Brigadier, thank you."
"This is very nice brandy," the Doctor said as they sat at either side of the Brigadier's desk. "It reminds me very much of something I had on Celestius 3. Of course, that would burn a hole through most species' digestive tracts." He glanced at the Brigadier with a mischievous smile. "Not mine, though."
The Brigadier took a sip of brandy, "Yes, I've been meaning to ask you, Doctor, just what exactly are you?" He was starting to be affected by the alcohol, because the Doctor didn't think he'd ever ask that while sober.
But the Doctor just smiled, "What do you think I am?"
The Brigadier sat back, thinking. Finally, he said, "I know you're not from Earth. I've seen your X-rays and you have two hearts. So, are you from the Andromeda galaxy?"
"That's a very good guess. Most people would have said Mars. But I'm afraid you're wrong, Brigadier," the Doctor said, his smile widening. It really was very good brandy.
"No, I supposed I was," the Brigadier said. "So what is it, then?"
The Doctor looked down at his brandy. He had told UNIT he'd been stranded here, but not the whole truth. Well, except for Liz, but she was different. She would be traveling with him if he had transport. Somehow, telling them would make it more real. It would mean admitting he'd be spending the foreseeable future here on Earth, not to mention telling them why. He liked the way humans always looked to him as if he had all the answers. He didn't want them to know he was at the mercy of his opulent, stuffy Time Lord higher-ups.
Still, while he was on Earth he owed everything he had to the Brigadier, who was risking prison keeping his origins secret. He supposed keeping the reason for his being here secret wasn't fair. "I'm a Time Lord," the Doctor finally said, meeting the Brigadier's eyes with a serious expression, letting him know this was top secret.
"A Time Lord?" The Brigadier repeated, an impressed look crossing his face no matter how he tried not to let it show. The Doctor smirked. That was about all the title was good for, impressing people.
"We discovered the secret of time travel long ago, but we don't use it. We're just supposed to observe, watch, do nothing until something catastrophic happens. Then we step in, fix the problem and berate everyone else for not being as good as we are." The Doctor was surprised by his own bitterness, and drank some more brandy to cover it up.
"And you didn't agree with that, I take it? Got bored and left?"
"Yes, how on Earth did you know?"
The Brigadier gave him a knowing look, "Lucky guess."
"Yes, well, I got away, which isn't easy, I'll have you know. I stole my TARDIS and traveled around for a good while before they caught up with me. They forced me to regenerate, exiled me to Earth. They made it so my TARDIS couldn't travel through time, and erased my memory of how to fix it so I can't leave."
"You stole your TARDIS?" the Brigadier asked.
That was all he'd taken from that story? The Doctor sighed, "Yes. They weren't too happy with me, as you can see." He gestured around the office, calling attention to his current situation.
"Is that what happened to your traveling companions? Jamie and Zoe?"
The Doctor sighed. "Yes. The Time Lords erased their memories of traveling with me and sent them back to their own times." He sighed. Out of everything the Time Lords had done, that was what hurt the most. Everything else, he knew he would get back in time, even his ability to travel, as awful as it was now without it. But Jamie and Zoe would never remember him or their experiences together. Or even each other.
The Brigadier, meanwhile, was looking at him with an expression very close to sympathy. "I'm sorry, Doctor. I hope you won't take it badly if I tell you we're glad to have you here. You've been very helpful."
"Well, I'm glad I'm useful to somebody," the Doctor said, but he held up his glass so they could clink them together. "I don't think I ever thanked you for letting me stay here. I suppose it goes without saying I don't have anywhere else to go." It struck him how alone he really was, in spite of all the people he'd traveled with and he looked up and smiled sadly. "I don't suppose it's so bad here, after all." There was an irony to it, that he had to be exiled to find people who appreciated what he did. UNIT could be a good home base, if he let them. Maybe it was time to spend some time outside the lab. Liz would be happy to hear that, when she got back.
An hour later, and onto the second bottle of brandy, the Doctor was telling the Brigadier about an adventure he'd had on one of the moons of Saturn in the far future. "You know, the atmosphere there is so thin you have to wear a spacesuit to go outside and the delegates from the Horsehead Nebula Federation were busy throwing rocks at me. Well, the rocks weren't going very fast, because of the lack of gravity but they traveled far and I had to leap fifty yards or more with each stop just to keep ahead of them!"
The Brigadier started to laugh, barely avoiding snorting, "Did you ever find out what you did to make them so angry?"
"That's the thing, I have absolutely no idea!" the Doctor said indignantly. "I just got to the TARDIS as quickly as possible and left." They both collapsed in laughter.
"I think I'm beginning to see why the Time Lords see you as such a menace," the Brigadier said through his laughter.
"Really, Brigadier, there's no need for insults," the Doctor said, trying to sound stern, but failing because of how hard he was laughing. He got up, swaying slightly due to the brandy, "Thank you, Brigadier, for a very nice Christmas."
"Yes, we'll have to make this a tradition for as long as you're here," the Brigadier said, trying to maintain his air of authority. He didn't exactly succeed because he was still laughing, and continued to laugh as the Doctor headed back to the lab, where he gave up working on the TARDIS for the night in favor of watching the annual Christmas movie. It was about time he got to know his new home base a little better, after all.
The next time he saw the Brigadier, after everyone had returned from Christmas leave, they glanced at each other then quickly looked away, silently agreeing not to mention their Christmas celebration. It got around UNIT headquarters anyway, and the story about how the mysterious new science adviser got the commanding officer drunk over Christmas served, inexplicably to both of them, to make them more popular among the recruits.
It also had the unintended side effect that the Brigadier gave the Doctor a bottle of brandy every Christmas for the next five years, until his new regeneration swore he couldn't stand the stuff.
A/N Three and the Brigadier is what made me fall in love with Doctor Who in the first place.
